


skyscraper

by cuubism



Series: whumptober [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode: s02e08 Love is a Devil, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Tenderness, falling, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27000904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuubism/pseuds/cuubism
Summary: Alec doesn't understand why Magnus is so insistent he stay off the balcony--not until Magnus himself falls off a building.whumptober alt. 2 - falling
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Series: whumptober [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949743
Comments: 18
Kudos: 147





	skyscraper

For a while Alec thinks Magnus is afraid of heights. That would be strange for someone who lives on the top floor of a skyscraper, but nevertheless it seems to be the case. He always insists they go inside when Alec suggests drinks on the balcony; he has an uncanny ability to summon Alec away when he finds himself on the Institute rooftop. Alec doesn’t get it, but he complies readily enough, not wanting to make Magnus more uncomfortable than he already is.

He doesn’t get it until Magnus falls off a roof himself.

They’re in the middle of what should have been a simple mission: get in, kill the demons, get out. Somehow they find themselves on the sheer roof of a contemporary skyscraper, their feet sliding on the skylights, demons chasing them along the glass, claws outstretched. Alec takes them out one-by-one with his arrows, surefooted even on the slanted ground after years of providing air cover.

Magnus isn’t so lucky.

A demon knocks him off balance, throwing him to the ground as he blasts it to bits with his magic. And Magnus slides on the slanted roof, unable to get a grip on the glass or his feet under him.

“Magnus!”

Alec yells for him, runs for him, but he’s too slow—Magnus slides, and slides, and disappears over the edge of the roof with a yelp.

Alec’s heart goes with him. He lurches to the edge, breathing hard, leaning over precariously into the open air, terrified to see.

There’s—nothing. No body on the ground far below, no Magnus landed elsewhere or clinging to some wall somewhere. “Magnus!” Alec yells again, desperate for any kind of response.

The wind answers him, and he feels cold despair sweep in with it, a horror and grief so profound that it picks him apart at each tiny seam. This _can’t_ be happening. It can’t. He can’t have just disappeared.

He can’t just be _gone_.

A portal opens behind him and Magnus plummets through, landing on one of the skylights with a painful-sounding _crack_. The glass shatters and he goes tumbling through into the room below. Apparently even portal magic can’t slow the pull of gravity.

Alec dispatches the last of the demons and leaps through the shattered skylight after him, landing in a crouch on the floor of what looks like some kind of office, fortunately closed for the night.

Magnus is lying flat on his back in the center of a conference table, shattered glass spread out in a circle around him. Alec runs to him, placing a tentative hand on his knee.

“Magnus, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

Magnus just groans.

“Can you feel your legs?”

“I can feel them and they _hurt_ ,” Magnus snaps, then immediately softens. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay, let’s just— let’s get you out of there.” Alec brushes the glass out of the way, feeling it slice at his palms and not caring, so long as it doesn’t cut Magnus’s skin.

It’s rather too late for that, he realizes as he eases Magnus off the table and onto his feet. Everywhere his clothes are sliced open from his fall through the glass, and blood oozes out onto the fabric. He stands gingerly beside Alec.

“Did you get the rest of them?” he asks, voice rasping.

“They’re gone,” Alec says, “we can go home.”

Magnus waves a hand, wincing at the motion, and a portal opens up before them.

He’s falling. It’s dark and he’s falling. Magnus is falling, and Alec can’t catch him—

He jerks upright, breathing hard, reaching for Magnus’s side of the bed.

It’s cold. Empty.

“Magnus?”

There’s no response, just the quiet bedroom.

_“Magnus?”_

Alec gets out of bed, heart pounding, moving quietly toward the living room, thinking, he’s gone. He’s _gone._

There’s a soft light out on the balcony.

Alec creeps out there to find Magnus sitting on the couch, looking out over the city, pensive. And the only thing Alec can think to say is, “I thought you hated the balcony?”

Magnus blinks out of his reverie, turning to look at him. “Why would I hate it?”

“You never want me to come out here.”

But even as Alec says it, he understands.

“Oh.”

Magnus smiles wryly. “Indeed.” He pats the seat beside him for Alec to sit down.

His movements are hesitant even after healing all his wounds with his magic. But Alec knows it can take the mind longer to realize something is healed than it takes the body. Rational or not, Magnus is still instinctively waiting for the wounds to reopen.

Alec takes his hand, holding it between both of his own. “I’m sorry,” he says, “for… falling.”

“No apologies necessary, darling.” Magnus turns to look out at the city again. “I’m sorry for treating you as if you can’t handle a bit of height.”

“Maybe I can’t,” Alec says before he can think it through. “I couldn’t handle it today. When I saw you fall, I was—” he swallows, the memory rising like bile in his throat “—terrified.”

“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” says Magnus. He squeezes Alec’s hand. “And I hope—” now his tone turns hesitant— “I won’t be able to get rid of you, either.”

Alec doesn’t know if he can promise him that. Shadowhunters are easily gotten rid of. “I hope not, too.”

Magnus’s thumb runs over his knuckles, back and forth, back and forth. Alec can just barely see the glint of his rings in the moonlight.

“Are you sore?” he asks.

Magnus hums noncommittally, which Alec takes as a _yes._

“Come on.” He tugs at Magnus’s hand until he rises to his feet and obediently follows Alec back into the warmth of the loft.

Alec takes him to the bathroom. The warm light over the sink catches in the lines of Magnus’s face. He looks tired.

“Bath?” Alec asks.

Magnus nods, smiling a little. Alec turns on the tap and lets the tub start to fill, the steam rising to cloud the mirror.

Magnus is wearing rather more clothes than is normal for him in bed. He must have been cold, or craving the soft fabric. Alec watches as he plays with the tie of his robe, looping it around his fingers but not untying it.

“I—” he begins, voice catching in hesitation. Alec takes a step closer, concerned, and Magnus says, “Undress me?”

There’s a sort of plea in it that Alec thinks he understands, even if it’s new to him. _Be gentle with me._ As if Alec would ever want to be anything but.

He takes the tie of Magnus’s robe between his fingers and tugs it open, startled to realize that underneath it Magnus is wearing one of _his_ t-shirts, the fabric snug around his broader shoulders. He seems a little embarrassed about it actually, not meeting Alec’s gaze, but doesn’t say anything.

“It’s okay,” Alec says, and slides the robe off his shoulders.

Then he takes the hem of Magnus’s shirt and tugs it slowly upward, not wanting to get it caught in his hair. Magnus sort of shimmies to get out of it, shivering when Alec’s hands brush his stomach.

He finally meets Alec’s gaze when Alec’s fingertips brush against the waistband of his pajama pants. He looks raw, and Alec doesn’t know if it’s the falling or just this, this intimacy that’s still so new to them, but he feels it, too—the unwinding.

“Go ahead,” Magnus says, incorrectly interpreting Alec’s hesitation. Alec likes to think he can read Magnus well enough by now to know when he doesn’t want Alec’s touch, and that’s not why he’s hesitating. They aren’t even going to have sex, after all—or at least, Alec doesn’t plan on initiating it.

Maybe that’s _why_ he hesitates—because it’s a lot, to see Magnus unveiled, to unveil him, slowly and gently and without intention. And it’s just— it’s just _new_ , to have that.

He pulls Magnus’s pajama pants down and helps him step out of them.

He’s not wearing any underwear underneath, because of _course_ he isn’t, the bastard. He clearly remembers the first time Alec had woken him with a kiss, had rolled on top of him as Magnus pulled him closer, had slipped a hand under the waistband of his pajamas only to find he was wearing nothing underneath. How Alec had gasped into his mouth.

It makes something funny twist in Alec’s stomach, to realize this is just a habit of Magnus’s now, that even sore and lost in his head he goes to sleep like that automatically. Alec isn’t sure whether he likes the feeling or not.

He pulls his own shirt off over his head, because it feels very uneven, their respective states of undress, no matter how much he would normally enjoy admiring Magnus’s body. Magnus watches him, his eyes bright in the dim lighting of the bathroom. He’s still wearing his _rings_ , of all things. Did he fall asleep in them? Or did he put them on when he woke up, wanting the comfort of the weight on his hands? Alec can’t remember.

“Can I see your hands?”

Magnus wordlessly holds them out, and Alec twists his rings off his fingers, one by one, placing them carefully on the counter. When he’s finished, he holds Magnus’s hands for a long moment, looking at how delicate and strong they are.

“The bath is getting cold,” says Magnus, but the corners of his mouth are turned up.

Alec leans in to kiss him, light and quick. “Get in, then.”

“Quit making it difficult.” Magnus pokes his chest, but he does climb into the tub, sighing as he sinks into the warm water.

Alec strips off the rest of his clothes and climbs in after him, sitting across from him. Magnus’s hair is already starting to curl a bit from the steam, and Alec’s sure his is even worse. He reaches out to smooth a hand through Magnus’s hair, and Magnus leans into the touch, humming.

Then he frowns and takes Alec’s hand between his own, pulling it down to look at it. “You’re bleeding.”

A thin stream of blood is trickling from an opened cut in Alec’s palm, mingling with the water. There’s a smear of it on Magnus’s temple, too.

“It’s from the glass,” Alec says.

“Didn’t you heal it?”

“Yeah, I guess the _iratze_ missed one.”

Magnus is still staring at his hand. His own hands are starting to shake slightly, and it occurs to Alec with a jolt that this might be taking Magnus back to the fall, to the feeling of crashing through the skylight.

“Hey.” Alec squeezes Magnus’s hands in his own, ignoring the sting of the cut. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”

Magnus shakes his head. “That’s not what I’m thinking about.”

_Oh._

Alec doesn’t really know how to console him about _that_.

“Does it upset you?” Magnus asks.

Alec’s really been trying not to think about it. “I don’t know.” And then he adds, “It’s not the first time I’ve fallen off something,” because technically it wasn’t, even if there was never quite that _context._ But he regrets speaking at all when Magnus flinches.

But then Magnus says, “Nor mine.”

And somehow, Alec knows what he means.

“It was lucky you caught yourself,” he says, squeezing Magnus’s hands.

Magnus laughs a little, humorlessly, shaking his head. “It was lucky you were still on the roof. I barely had a second to open that portal. I didn’t have time to picture the roof of a building I’d seen once. I told the portal to take me to _you_.”

Alec opens his mouth, then closes it, unsure what to say. He can’t let himself think about what would have happened if Magnus’s portal hadn’t been able to latch onto him. He just holds Magnus’s hands tighter.

“One of us will just have to stay on the roof, then,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> i have a master's in talking around things if you can't tell
> 
> [tumblr](https://cuubism.tumblr.com) ⭐


End file.
